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According to our friends over at Variety, it looks like action star
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has landed in a new comedy with Transformers
Director Michael Bay at the helm titled Pain And Gain! This so called
low budget film will keep Mr. Johnson working as he already has two
more Fast & Furious films to complete plus the GI Joe sequel, AND
another film titled Snitch. Here’s the article…

According to Variety;

Which muscular stars did Michael Bay first call for his darkly comedic
bodybuilding pic “Pain and Gain”?

Both thesps discussed the film with Bay, and Johnson is in early talks
to topline Bay’s low-budget (by his standards) laffer. But Wahlberg’s
busy schedule forced him to pass on the project Monday afternoon.

Johnson remains a frontrunner for one of the two lead roles, though
sources caution that it’s still early in the casting process.

Based on a Miami New Times article from 1999, “Pain and Gain” will
follow a pair of Florida bodybuilders who get caught up in an
extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.

“Captain America” scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote
the original script and have compared its tone to the Coen brothers’
“Fargo,” which was also based on a true crime story.

Long-gestating dark comedy, which is said to carry a modest $20
million price tag, is set up at Paramount and will be produced by Bay
and Donald De Line, who has been involved with the project since 2001.

Johnson has been working non-stop since helping to usher “Fast Five”
to the highest gross in Universal’s “Fast and Furious” franchise. With
“Pain and Gain” expected to start production in the spring, Johnson
would be able to squeeze the film in before returning for the sixth
and seventh entries in “Fast” series, which Universal would ideally
like to shoot back-to-back beginning next year. Johnson, who returns
to family fare with “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” Feb. 10,
recently wrapped “G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation” and will soon begin filming
Ric Roman Waugh’s action thriller “Snitch.”

With Wahlberg no longer mulling “Pain and Gain,” several projects
remain in contention for his next slot, including Universal’s “2 Guns”
and Adam McKay’s football comedy “Three Mississippi.” In recent years,
Wahlberg has mixed comedies such as “The Other Guys” and “Date Night”
in between dramatic turns in “The Fighter” and “The Lovely Bones.”

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